This has to be my most anticipated movie of the year if nothing else than it’s my most anticipated movie for a few years.
I appreciate Francis Ford Coppola a lot. I share his outlook on creativity. I also feel that, like me, he’s hardworking but not disciplined. I can relate to getting high and last-minute writing something I had all the time in the world to do, or something that at least should have been firmly settled on.
I…
I was prepared to go my whole life without seeing The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Although it was a smash success when it was released earlier this year and received a bunch of praise, what I had heard (even from people who liked it) gave me confidence that this wasn’t going to be my kind of thing. But I’m trying to watch as many 2023 films as I can before the year ends, and I thought I’d watch a movie…
Daft Punk’s Electroma is probably the best pure art film ever. The filmmaking on display is inspired, able to portray great emotion without words or faces (well, not normal, human faces), just gesture, music, light, shadow, and editing. Not everyone is going to click with Electroma, but it should really be given a chance, with those who don’t know it exists or don’t want to give it a chance because it might be too obtuse for them are missing out on a cathartic experience of pure cinema.
So I actually like much of Novocaine more than a 3-star rating would suggest. There are some very specific problems I had that, while they were more substantial than nitpicks, weren’t so egregious that any one of them could have derailed the whole film; rather, it was all of them together that chipped away with the weight of them holding the film back from being more enjoyable for a critical dingus like me.
There were various contrivances that served to…
Museum of the Moving Image — See it Big: 70mm! Opening night!
It’s 2001. What can I really say that isn’t well-worn territory? Seeing it in 70mm was pretty special. I couldn’t tell you the last time I watched a movie shot, edited, and projected on film. It’s probably been 20 years or more since I’ve seen a movie with reel changeover cues. Some details stood out to me like they didn’t before: I never really spotted the people in…
Suspiria really nails the atmosphere. The production and art design are very effective, and the music heightens the eerie tone. The plot could have been established much better, and a script rewrite would have gone a long way to moving the film beyond the strong aesthetic.
